


Slippery When Wet

by JaineyBaby, timetospy



Series: la Vie en Rose [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), SPECTRE (2015), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Breaking and Entering, Hurt/Comfort, James likes the cats, M/M, Q controls his libido, barely, injured!james, paella as a comfort food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 02:36:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7872667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaineyBaby/pseuds/JaineyBaby, https://archiveofourown.org/users/timetospy/pseuds/timetospy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He took the last few steps to the door, paused a moment, then burst in, assuming his firing stance and scanning the room. The refrigerator door was open, and he could see someone bent over, rummaging around in the crisper. <br/>“Oh for the love of….”<br/>He recognised that arse. He could pick it out of a lineup, should the need arise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slippery When Wet

**Author's Note:**

> This is a stand-alone story, but you might want to read [ Riding in Cars with Spies ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5546726) first for a bit of context. Not necessary to enjoy this one, however!

_ February, 2014 _

 

Q’s eyes snapped open in the dark and he was instantly alert, his breathing quiet, his ears straining to hear what had woken him.

There was the creak of a floorboard, the soft swish of hinges, the  _ snick _ of a light switch. Someone was inside his flat. Well, they’d certainly chosen the wrong flat to break into. He slipped out of bed noiselessly, and eased open the drawer of the bedside table where he kept the gun. James had insisted, and he was proficient, if not gifted, in its use.

Isabo jumped from the windowsill with a thump and a soft miaow, and his heart gave a painful upward jerk. This was why he didn’t do fieldwork. His nerves would never allow it. That and the aeroplanes. 

He eased out of the bedroom, keeping his back to the wall, and edged his way down the hallway toward the kitchen. The light was on, he could see the triangle of yellow light spilling through the door onto the floor at the end of the hall. A shadow crossed the light and he heard the sound of a cupboard door, the clink of a plate being set on the counter. Were they...eating? They’d broken into his flat to eat?

He took the last few steps to the door, paused a moment, then burst in, assuming his firing stance and scanning the room. The refrigerator door was open, and he could see someone bent over, rummaging around in the crisper. 

“Oh for the love of….”

He recognised that arse. He could pick it out of a lineup, should the need arise. 

“One of these days I really am going to shoot you.”

The man behind the refrigerator door straightened, and he saw that familiar face, craggy and worn, but distinguished and devilishly handsome, sporting a new black eye and a fresh cut on his cheek. He looked older.

“Unexpected mission termination.” 

James Bond, spy for Her Majesty’s Secret Service, stood in Q’s kitchen in a tattered suit that was still shedding plaster dust and helped himself to the food in Q’s refrigerator. If it had been the first time he’d woken to such an event, he would have been upset. Instead, he felt a rush of relief. It meant he was safe. 

“Obviously.”

“Hope you don't mind.”

“No, of course. Handsome blokes break in here all the time to make themselves a snack, I've come to expect it.”

“Which is why you brought your gun.”

“Obviously.”

“Obviously.”

James smirked, then, and shut the refrigerator door with his foot, taking the leftover paella to the microwave and popping it inside. Newton arrived from the front hall on silent paws and twined himself around James’ legs as he walked across the kitchen. James bent to give him a scratch between the ears, and hissed as he straightened again. What kind of injuries was he hiding this time?

“Thought you'd be sick of paella by now,” Q said, and pulled a stool out from the counter. He sat, and lay the gun down in front of him. With the way James was moving, it was probably not broken bones, just strain. And none of the visible bloodstains were expanding. How much of that blood was James’ and how much was from whoever it was that had hurt him? Q hoped they’d gotten a good beating themselves before the end.

“Never.”

He was used to James showing up unannounced, and usually in bad shape, but somehow, this time was worse. There were lines etched in James’ face that hadn’t been there when he’d been given this assignment three weeks ago. But they picked right back up where they’d left off, as if the time had never happened, as if James had only left his bed that morning and gone out to the office, and had a late meeting. He glanced at the clock. A  _ very _ late meeting, it was nearly three.

But it wasn’t that simple. Nothing with James Bond was ever just that simple. 

Q stood, crossed the kitchen, and stopped so close to James that he could feel his breath.  _ Touch me _ he willed, his eyes a mask of indifference. He couldn’t tell James how much he was missed, how much he was needed here. He wasn’t that selfish. But oh, he wanted to be. James raised his hand, but as it lifted, he flinched in pain.

“What are you hiding?”

“Nothing, just a scratch,” James replied, mastering himself and bringing a thumb up to smooth across his cheek. Q leant into the touch on instinct, his eyes fluttering shut for a moment.

“Liar.”

The microwave beeped then, and Q sighed. James turned to retrieve his leftovers.

“Eat first.”

“Good to know I have your permission.”

“It wasn’t permission, it was an order. Eat.”

“Pulling rank on me, Q?” James teased.

“It is my flat. And my food.”

“Which is delicious,” James said through a mouthful.

That pulled a chuckle out of him, and he shook his head.

James ate as though he hadn’t done so since he’d left. Q knew full well that hadn’t been the case. He’s seen what had been charged to the MI6 plastic.

It was the work of mere minutes for James to be scraping the plate clean, licking the back of the fork to get those last few crumbs. Q watched silently, and tried very hard not to be jealous of the fork. 

James sat back with a wince and a sigh, his eyes closed in what could only be called contentment.

“Alright, I think you’ve shed plaster dust all over my kitchen enough for one night. Up you get.”

“Mm. Stripping me down already?” The lazy arousal on James’ face nearly buckled Q’s knees, but he managed to roll his eyes instead.

“Saving my carpeting,” he said.

“Mm-hmm.”

“James, you’re hurt.” 

James shrugged, his smirk said ‘later, then,’ and he began unbuttoning what was left of his jacket. Q came up behind and helped ease it from his shoulders, laying it across a kitchen chair as it came free. The process was repeated with his shirt, and as it slid off his shoulders, Q gasped.

Criss-crossed all across James’ back were bruises and welts, most of which were still fresh, angry red and purple marks and one long, jagged gash in his side across his ribs.

“Jesus,” Q whispered, his hand going up instinctively to touch the marks. “What happened?”

“Russian mafia. Very angry when they figured out who I was.”

“I’d imagine.” He tried his very best not to.

James hissed as Q’s fingers brushed across a particularly raw scrape that ran from his shoulder all the way to the waistband of his trousers. Carefully, with precision and an attention to detail honed by months of practice, he began to probe around James’ ribs for fractures. It was a skill he never envisioned having, but one he was glad he’d acquired given James’ cavalier attitude towards injuries. One would think that nearly getting killed might incline one to seek medical assistance, but it had induced the opposite effect for James. 

He tried to be clinical about it, detached, but it was virtually impossible. James was so warm, so present, so utterly alive under his fingers, and it had been so long. He took a deep breath in through his nose, and the musky scent of him nearly pushed Q over the edge from contained arousal into horny bastard. He stepped back.

“I don’t think any ribs are broken. So there’s that. And it doesn’t look like you’ll need stitches. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

He followed James down the hall to the bathroom, binning the shirt and jacket on the way. He tried not to think about how much money he’d just condemned to the rubbish heap.

Once in the bathroom, Q ran the shower as hot as he could stand while James finished stripping off his ruined trousers. The bruises continued unabated down his thighs, and for one brief, horrible moment, Q was terrified that something altogether worse than beatings had occurred. There was no way to know, James was not the sort of man you asked that of, but it sat like bricks in his gut, heavy and cold.

“Alright, get in,” he said, his hand coming to rest at the small of his back as James clambered into the shower.

James groaned as he stepped under the spray, almost sagging against the wall. Too long. It had been too long and Q was only human, despite what some of his staff in Q-branch believed. He pulled off his tee-shirt and pyjama bottoms and stepped into the shower behind James.

“Thought you said…”

“I did. Let me get your back, yeah? Pass me the sponge.”

Q pressed the sponge against James’ back, trying to avoid the worst of the torn flesh, letting the hot water and soap do the work. He tried to resist the urge to kiss the unbroken skin, he knew James needed rest and care, not his unbridled hormones wreaking havoc on his already battered body, but his lips pressed against the places on his back that were pale and smooth. 

James leant into his touch with a sigh. Without thinking about it, Q’s arms circled his waist, hands splayed over his stomach, and he rested his forehead against James’ shoulder.

“Missed you,” James murmured. 

God, he wanted that to be true, that James had thought of him every night while he slept alone in his bed in St. Petersburg. But he knew that wasn’t how it worked with James. It never could. James missed him the way you miss a favourite jumper, you didn’t think about it much until you realised that you’d left it a thousand miles away and really wanted to wear it. He found a modicum of comfort in the fact that when James came back he always came here, to this flat, with his two cats and broken-in couch and leftover paella in the refrigerator. To him.

James turned in his arms so they faced one another, his glacier blue eyes soft and unguarded, a smile played with his lips but did not catch fire. His fingers danced over Q’s ribs, touching, grounding, but without pressure or need. Q was more than half-hard, but James didn’t comment. He merely returned the embrace, one hand buried in his hair, the other wrapped around his waist and pulling him close until their chests pressed together and they both had their faces buried in the other’s neck.

Q melted into the embrace, and he wanted to wrap his arms so tightly around James that he couldn’t leave, but his injuries were fresh and so he settled, God he  _ always _ settled, for wrapping his hands around James’ relatively uninjured shoulders and hanging on for dear life.

He wasn’t sure how long they stood there, breathing in the essence of the other, but it was long enough that the water turned cool and he began to shiver. Q unwrapped himself from James and turned off the tap, climbed awkwardly out of the tub, and grabbed a towel off the bar, tossing it behind him. The warmth of the water had loosened the muscles in James’ back and soothed the worst of the bruises, and he caught the towel and draped it over his head with barely a flinch. Q would still need to dress the actual wounds, but at least the man could move without the tell-tale twitch in the muscle of his jaw.

Q wrapped a towel around his waist and opened the cupboard under the sink, pulling out gauze and antibiotic ointment and medical tape and setting them out on the counter. 

“Sit,” he said, and pointed at the toilet.

James sat backwards on the stool, his back facing the room, towel hung loosely around his hips, and Q began smearing ointment over the worst of the scrapes.

“Debriefing in the morning, then,” Q said.

“Or whenever I bloody well feel like showing up. I might sleep for a week.” James hissed as Q brushed over a particularly raw spot.

“Sorry. Lift your arm just here.”

James did, and winced. Q could see a bit of blood beginning to flow out of the gash in his side.

“Hold still.”

Q pressed along the gash and it gaped open effortlessly and a fresh rivulet of blood seeped out. 

“Shit.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Probably, it’s ragged though. I don’t know how pretty it’ll be.”

James fixed him with a glare.

“Does it look like I give a damn?”

“I should take you to Medical and make them deal with you,” Q said as he applied ointment around the wound.

“But you won’t.”

“No.” 

“Thank you.”

Q sighed and pulled out the roll of gauze from his kit and a few absorbent pads and did what he could. James never complained, didn’t even wince, as Q worked, covering the wound and wrapping the gauze around his chest to keep it in place. 

“There’s some scotch in the kitchen,” Q said when he’d finished.

“Now you’re plying me with liquor. People are going to talk.”

“And you would encourage them. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

Q padded into the kitchen and retrieved the scotch and two tumblers, carrying them back to the bathroom, which was empty. Q’s shoulders lifted in silent mirth. How like James to ignore even the simplest of requests.

He pushed open the door to the bedroom just in time to see James slip between the sheets and school his face into his patented ‘come hither’ look, complete with hooded eyes and seductive smirk. Q had never wished more fervently to be wearing trousers. But he wasn’t going to let his libido run away with him tonight. 

“No,” Q said, shutting the door behind him with his foot, but not before Newton scooted through at lightning speed and rocketed onto the bed. “You’re bleeding. Not happening.”

James shrugged.

“It was worth a try.”

Q huffed a laugh.

“Here.” He held up the scotch and glasses. “You pour, I’m going to retrieve my pyjamas.”

James shrugged again.

Q handed the liquor over to James, then returned to the bathroom, scooped up his discarded bottoms and took the opportunity to return his first aid kit to the cabinet.

As he slipped back into the bedroom, he couldn’t help but smile.

James was already asleep, having never even poured the scotch, the tumblers sitting empty on the bedside table. Newton was purring contentedly on his stomach, his eyes squeezed shut in apparent bliss.

Q shook his head and climbed in beside them. It might not be perfect, and it might not be forever, but it was warm and comfortable now, and Q decided, as his eyes grew heavy with sleep, that ‘now’ was a vast improvement to ‘never.’


End file.
